Not So Platonic Looks
There was a very tentative something growing between Tadashi and Fred as the weeks passed.
The two of them would of course deny anything happening between them, but if you asked anyone else they would tell you there was a betting pool going about when the pair would get their heads out of their asses and actually start dating. Practically the whole base was in on it.
It was impossible not to see the sparks flying between them- unless your name was Tadashi Hamada or Fred Whitaker.
"Hiro, for the last time, Fred and I are not dating," Tadashi sighed. He had an overwhelming urge to bang his head on the wall he was leaning against but resisted with great effort.
His little brother leaned uncomfortably close to his face and smirked. "That's the biggest load of bullshit you've ever told me. I mean come on, you guys cuddle, you eat all your meals together, sometimes you take naps with each other...."
"I do all those things with you too, you know," he huffed.
"Yeah, but I'm your brother. And I only let you do most of those things because I'm obligated to as your sibling. Fred is not your brother, and therefore it's not the same."
Tadashi pushed his face away and pouted. "Well, maybe Fred and I are just growing brotherly affection for each other," he said.
Hiro snorted. "There's nothing brotherly about the way you look at him."
Tadashi punched him in the arm for that.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," he sniffed disdainfully as Hiro rubbed the sore spot on his arm and scowled.
"I'm talking about how you look at him like you want to spend the rest of your life nestled in his arms and trading slow kisses," Hiro said.
"Wha- I do not! Take that back! I don't look at him like that!" he sputtered, waving his arms frantically in the air as though he had no idea what to do with them. There was a fierce blush growing exponentially on his face.
Hiro merely rolled his eyes at his brother's antics. "Oh, I'm sorry. Were we talking about the other one then? The one where you look like you're ready for him to fuck-" you within an inch of your life, is what he was going to say, but Tadashi slapped a hand over his mouth before he could finish.
"Oh my god, please stop talking!" he hissed, throwing a mortified look around to see if anyone had heard what Hiro had said. It was a bit unnecessary, given that they were alone in Tadashi's room.
Hiro, being the mature adult that he was, decided that the best way to get his older brother's hand off his mouth was to lick it. Tadashi screeched and immediately released his hold on him to stare at his hand in horror and then wipe it on Hiro's shirt in revenge.
"Aww, don't be like that," Hiro tutted. "Come on, I know you like him. I don't see why you pretend like you don't when it's so obvious."
"You're delusional. Fred and I are just friends, and that's the way it's always going to be," he replied, pushing the younger man out of the room and ignoring his peals of laughter. Thank god they got separate rooms when Tadashi returned to the jaeger program.
Hiro was being ridiculous.
Fred was just his friend.
And he did not look at him any way other than "brotherly".
Okay, maybe he was having a little trouble looking at Fred in a brotherly fashion.
It was not his fault though! He wanted to be clear on that. It was definitely not his fault. No one could look at Fred right now and not be distracted by how attractive he looked. Nobody.
Tadashi was trying extremely hard not to be distracted by the way Fred's tank top clung to him, or the way his muscles moved under his skin whenever he lifted something heavy to hand it to Gogo, or the mixture of grease and sweat that made his skin glisten under the lights.
He wasn't doing very well.
A flash to his right broke him out of his stupor, and he turned to see Hiro grinning ear to ear as he examined his phone.
"What are you doing?" Tadashi asked suspiciously. That smile never meant anything good on Hiro.
His little brother flipped his phone around to show him the picture he'd taken. "See that? Photographic proof that you like him," he said.
Tadashi flushed- he did look kind of lovesick in that picture. "Wh- I do not! And that proves nothing!" He proceeded to busy himself by pretending to organize the tools on the table beside him. He separated a pile of nails a little more from a pile of screws, and stuck a pile of rags between the two to keep them apart. Gogo wouldn't actually care if the two piles were mixed together, but he needed something to distract him. Something that wasn't, you know, blonde and wearing a tank top.
Hiro gave him an incredulous look. "Are you kidding me? If you looked at me like that I'd send you to a therapist because that is definitely not brotherly affection you're exuding-"
"Can you please not do this right now?" Tadashi groaned. Oh god, why did the universe have to punish him like this?
"I'm just saying! I mean come on, just because you don't want to admit that you want him to raw you real good-"
Tadashi made an inhuman screeching sound as he shoved a clean rag into Hiro's mouth to shut him up.
Fred and Gogo both stopped what they were doing to stare at the pair. Gogo gave an appraising once over before deciding that she didn't need to know and went back to fixing the jaeger. Fred on the other hand, decided it was high time to take a break and went over to see what was going on.
"You two doing alright over here?" he asked, lifting an eyebrow at Hiro as he spat out the rag and gagged.
"Everything's fine!" Tadashi squeaked out. Fred found it rather hard to believe him when he was blushing brighter than Rudolph's nose on a foggy Christmas Eve, but he didn't press it. Besides, Tadashi was cute when he blushed and shuffled around like that.
"Well," he said, "I don't know about you guys, but I'm starving. Looks like Gogo has everything handled here, so I say we get some grub." He wiped his hands off on another unused rag and flung his arms around his friends, dragging them along to his lab.
He didn't want to take them to the cafeteria because frankly there were still people bitter about what happened with Amaterasu Bold despite the fact that it had been months ago. Honey and Fred had taken to storing food in the fridge in their office for the Hamadas- you know, instead of random kaiju parts they were too lazy to put in their official cooling rooms.
Hiro and Tadashi were getting a little better, but they still couldn't be trusted to eat on their own. Mostly because their idea of eating on their own involved not actually eating anything.
They chattered happily on the way to the lab, odd incident a few minutes ago disappearing from their minds.
Well, until they reached the lab that is.
Fred peeled away from the other two to check out what was in the fridge, and almost missed what Hiro leaned in to whisper to his brother.
"I was kidding before. We all know you're a responsible kid that practices safe sex and wouldn't have someone raw you." There was a whacking sound that Fred suspected was Tadashi smacking his brother.
Fred stifled his laughter and called over his shoulder, "Is this what you guys were talking about back in the hangar?"
Their embarrassed sputtering was all the answer he needed.
He turned back to the fridge to inspect what was inside, but he didn't get very far before Honey's cheerful voice interrupted him.
"Hi guys! Wasabi and I got takeout for dinner! I'm assuming you haven't eaten yet?" she said, looking pointedly at Fred as he stood in front of the open fridge.
He shrugged and gave her a lopsided smile. "You caught me. I was working with Gogo on sprucing up Crimson Havoc until these two knuckleheads showed up. They were having a fun conversation from what I heard," he said, giving the Hamadas a shit eating grin.
Honey and Wasabi shared a questioning look at the brothers who broke out into an intense coughing fit to avoid answering.
"...okay. Well, we got plenty of food, so somebody should probably get Gogo so she can join us," Wasabi said sensibly.
"I'll do it!" Hiro shouted before bolting out the door.
Tadashi cleared his throat and tried not to focus on how hot his face felt. "So what did you guys get?" he asked, trying to get rid of the awkward tension in the air. He dearly hoped his friends would just drop it. He would never be ready to talk about...that.
Luckily for him, Honey perked right up and saved him from his embarrassment. "We went to that Japanese place that just opened up! Your aunt told me the food was great when she went to test it out, so I figured we should all try it too!"
She and Wasabi started setting down bags while he and Fred cleared some space for them.
When Hiro returned with Gogo in tow the group divvied up the containers and settled in. Honey and Gogo were sitting on a yellow loveseat that had been found on craigslist, Wasabi sat on the only chair in the lab that wasn't covered in drying kaiju goo from an unfortunate mishap earlier that afternoon, and Fred was squished into the remaining blue loveseat with the Hamadas. And when he said squished, he meant squished.
Hiro, being the little shit that he was, was sprawled out like it wasn't already tight enough having three grown men on a couch meant for two people. Tadashi tried in vain to get him to make more room, but to no avail.
"If you don't like it then sit somewhere else," Hiro snorts as he fends off Tadashi's prying hands.
"I can't! I don't want to sit on the concrete floor, and the chairs are all covered in kaiju guts!"
"Yeah...sorry about that," Fred chuckled, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck. He was going to clean it up earlier, but then he got distracted when Gogo came along, and after that he sort of just forgot. He would definitely do it before the end of the night though. It was a miracle the stuff hadn't dried yet, but he wasn't taking any more chances. If it dried on there it would probably be impossible to get off.
"Sit on Fred's lap then or something- just stop pushing me!" Hiro said, shoving his brother in the blonde’s direction.
Now, Fred was a genetically enhanced creature that had been grown in a lab to be a deadly killing machine, so that meant he was pretty hard to kill. Unfortunately, when the precursors had designed him they were thinking more along the line of sharp things digging into his scales and not about how easily he could choke on a mouthful of goddamn noodles.
Maybe the next time one of his siblings showed up they could just shove truckloads of Japanese takeout into their mouth and pray the kaiju would suffocate on it.
He wheezed, grabbing the glass of water that was suddenly in front of him and taking a large gulp from it.
He'd been so caught up in his inability to breathe that he hadn't realized that the Hamadas had kept on bickering until Tadashi's voice snapped him back into the conversation.
"Fine! I bet it's comfier than having your knobby knees jamming into my legs anyways!"
Fred would have asked what they were talking about, but he suddenly found himself with a lapful of Tadashi and well.... He sort of lost the ability to speak after that.
He pointedly ignored the smug looks on his friends' faces and tried to act like he wasn't having a heart attack.
Tadashi leaned back into Fred's chest and gave Hiro the most annoyed scowl he could muster. It mainly just looked like a pout.
Hiro stuck his tongue out and spread out further on the loveseat.
If Fred were in his right mind he would have glared at the little bastard, but he was not in his right mind, so he didn't do that. Instead he realized that, without his knowledge, one of his hands had crept up to Tadashi's hip and was rubbing it soothingly. The other one was miraculously still holding his glass of water, so he took another sizable swig out of it.
And if he spent the rest of the meal being quieter than usual, nobody commented on it.
Although some of them definitely took some pictures for blackmail.